Wagenbrenner Development Inc. expects to begin construction on the first phase of its Jeffrey Park neighborhood in March or April, reviving building activity at the long-idle land near downtown.

The Columbus developer recently acquired the last 9.6 acres of reclaimed industrial land it needs for a residential project that could include as many as 1,300 apartments and condos built over 10 years. The company’s New Day Jeffrey LLC affiliate took title to the land through a deed in lieu of foreclosure from Waterford LP.

Wagenbrenner secured nearly 13 acres at the former Jeffrey Manufacturing Co. site in September through a similar property transfer from Waterford.

President Mark Wagenbrenner expects construction to start next spring on the first 108 of 261 apartments planned for six acres at the site.

“We’re pretty bullish the market will be there,” Wagenbrenner said, “and we will move fast.”

Looking for someone to help put his new Columbus automotive research and technology complex on the map, Arshot Investment Corp. Principal Bill Schottenstein has found his man in NASCAR team owner and driver Michael Waltrip.

Waltrip will be a minority partner in the Sports Pavilion & Automotive Research Complex at the former Cooper Stadium site, Schottenstein told me Tuesday. His North Carolina-based company, Michael Waltrip Racing, will also consult with Arshot on the design and operation of the racetrack at the complex and use SPARC for testing cars and holding team events.

Schottenstein introduced Waltrip at a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the Experience Columbus offices in the Arena District

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The City of Columbus is using money from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program to help Central Ohioans reclaim their neighborhoods.

The program has been so successful that it has begun to generate its own funds.

City leaders have worked with local groups to use the money from the program to renovate or tear down abandoned structures.

The city has sold or leased more than one hundred properties. The sales have generated a profit of $860,000, which the city has recycled back into the program.

Neighbors on the city’s south side are beginning to notice the improvements.

Jimi McNabb, who lives in one of the newly renovated homes, says he has been a resident of the neighborhood for many years. “I watched it bloom, and I watched it go down. Now, I’m watching it bloom again; and it makes me feel very good.”

McNabb says many houses in his south Columbus neighborhood were boarded up or vandalized.

“It attracts the homeless. It attracts street games. The property right across from me, that was one of the street gang’s favorite hangouts,” said McNabb.

Community Development for All People Executive Director Johns Edgar says the investment in the neighborhood creates stability and a place for families to live.

The not for profit organization will received about $240,000 from the program to refurbish homes along South 18th Street. The organization has also received funds from Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

“By the end of the year, we will have touched almost one out of every four houses in the neighborhood,” said Edgar.

The group has already acquired 45 homes and given several grants to homeowners so that they can make improvements to their properties.

Edwards Cos.’ plans for its Neighborhood Launch development in downtown Columbus are expanding with more high-density rental housing along East Long Street, the developer has confirmed.

The company's One Neighborhood New Community Authority originally contemplated developing 300 apartments, when the Columbus-Franklin County Finance Authority in October 2010 sold nearly $2.5 million in tax-exempt bonds in support of the project. President Jeff Edwards last week told IRR Corporate & Public Finance LLC, a consulting firm monitoring the tax-free bonds, that he now expects to build 450 units.

Edwards cited in particular two buildings of 129 apartments each under construction as a change in the development that began several years ago as a mostly condominium project. The development also will include 118 more condos, he wrote in a letter to the consulting firm, which included it in a public filing related to the bonds.

“We anticipate the completion of the two apartment buildings and a 33-unit condominium building by the end of 2014,” Edwards wrote in the Nov. 30 letter, “with the full build-out of the project expected to be completed by 2016.”

The latest office building in the Arena District debuted to a captive tenant Monday but that didn’t stop the president of developer Nationwide Realty Investors Ltd. from touting the 200,000-square-foot midrise that Nationwide Financial began occupying over the weekend.

Nationwide Realty head Brian Ellis on Monday led Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, City Council President Andy Ginther and others on a tour of the $32 million building at the corner of Front Street and Nationwide Boulevard. The Columbus-based insurer moved in the first 314 of 1,000 workers from Dublin into five-story structure over the weekend. The shift of jobs is expected to conclude in early February.

“We’re happy to kick (the building) off today,” Ellis told those on the tour.

Once-sleepy Gay Street has become one of the most vibrant corridors in an awakening Downtown

By Steve Wartenberg
The Columbus DispatchSunday December 16, 2012

Soon after he moved Downtown in 2005, Justin Crockett began scouting locations for the used-record store that was in the maybe-one-day stage.

And, no matter where or how far he wandered, the E. Gay Street corridor between N. High and 3rd streets beckoned.

“You could feel the energy growing along Gay Street,” said Crockett, who lives a couple of blocks away. “This is ground zero of the Downtown comeback.”

In October, Crockett and his partners opened Vinyl Frontier, joining other entrepreneurs and restaurateurs who have turned this once-quiet street into a vibrant hub of commerce and a destination for food- ies.

The block is lined with restaurants such as Due Amici, Tip Top and Plantain Cafe, as well as a growing number of boutiques that ooze urban charm.

Other recent additions to the block include the ZenCha Tea Salon and the zerOz wallet shop.

“I fell in love with Gay Street,” said Carolyn Maloney, who opened the 39 Below frozen-yogurt shop in August on the strip. “I came down one day for the farmers market (on Pearl Alley) and saw all these people and all this opportunity.”

Not so long ago, this stretch of E. Gay Street was a ghost town between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m., when local office workers returned.

Central Ohio will have fewer projects in the $50 million and up range next year, but a steady supply of smaller developments will help a once-thriving construction industry continue its painfully slow recovery from the Great Recession.

The residential sector will maintain its recent momentum, especially Downtown, and some businesses might start loosening their purse strings and break ground on long-needed expansions, especially if the government can get its act together and avoid that “cliff.”

These are some of the predictions for the local construction industry in the coming year, made by executives of two of the area’s largest construction companies.

“This year has been flat,” said Larry Mastella, vice president of the Westerville office of Gilbane Building.

Worse, increased competition has led to “lower margins as companies have had to reduce their price to get work,” Mastella said. That has strained the bottom line of many construction companies, especially the smaller ones, he said

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A national nonprofit will help Habitat for Humanity build three new homes in Linden.

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans gave a $250,000 grant to the organization to help more people in central Ohio.

EJ Thomas, chief executive officer for Habitat for Humanity-Greater Columbus, said that his organization is all about rebuilding.

“This is one of the prosperities here on 15th Avenue that we will be razing to building new homes for three Habitat partner families that have been identified over the course of the next year,” Thomas said.

“The philosophy of Habitat is a hand-up, not a hand-out,” Thomas said. “It’s human nature that you appreciate more that which you’ve worked for. So, not only do they work on the home on the way to the house being finished, but at the end of the day, they have a mortgage, just like you and I.”

That may seem to be a contradiction for a neighborhood with roots to the mid-1800s, but apt it is for a historic section of Columbus enjoying a revival for dining, entertainment and the nightlife.

“It’s becoming mature – well, maybe re-mature – after more than 100 years,” said Bill Schottenstein, principal with developer Arshot Investment Corp., the owner of several properties in the area. “A lot of times, when it falls off, you just move on to another area. It’s gratifying to see we can draw people back here.”

Orange Barrel President Pete Scantland told me the Grove City-based company’s proposed two-story, 10,000-square-foot office project, unveiled exclusively by Columbus Business First last April, easily cleared city zoning variances last year and that the Ohio Department of Transportation also approved the two, 150-foot advertising banners it wants to hang on the project, which lies within ODOT’s jurisdiction off Interstate 670.

On Saturday, BRU opened up their doors for a private launch party and soft opened to the general public last night. The new venue is Columbus’ first Brew-on-Premises facility in addition to being a traditional brewery, a bar, and a home brew supply shop.

“We had a couple hundred people come through on Saturday night, which was a really great turnout”, said co-owner Gavin Meyers. “The bar is open and we’ve got 30 beers on tap, five of which are ours.”

The house beer brewed on site is under the guidance of brew master Charlie Davis and under the label of the “North High Brewing Company”. The starting lineup includes a pale ale, an IPA, a milk stout, a porter and an ESB. BRU will begin taking registrations for brew-on-premises sessions within a few weeks.

Located at 1288 North High Street, BRU is housed in a former warehouse building that was completely gutted and renovated for their brewery operations. The bar reflects that with exposed brick and ornate woodwork and beer growler lighting fixtures designed by Tomorrow’s Antiques.

The Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) announced today that they have negotiated a contract for the purchase of the old Deaf School property located south of the Main Downtown library, and adjacent to the Topiary Park. The 114-year-old four-story building is currently vacant and includes a 2.24 acre property. The CML Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote on the contract at their upcoming Jan 30th board meeting.

If obtained, the Downtown Library could connect the two buildings together to create new spaces, as well as connect the buildings to the Topiary Park with an outdoor terrace area.

Construction has begun on the proposed racetrack and auto research complex that will rehab Cooper Stadium. Developers and local officials hope the complex will give life to a quiet neighborhood. Residents just hope they won’t hear it.

On a chilly November morning, Cooper Stadium is as silent and still as its cemetery neighbors. Padlocked gates close off the empty parking lots, their abandoned concrete surfaces veined with cracks and faded paint lines. Rust is starting to show on the underside of silver grandstands. Overgrown, browning bushes wind up outfield fences.

It has been three years since the Franklinton neighborhood echoed with the roar of fans inside Cooper Stadium, hushed in 2009 when the Clippers moved to Huntington Park in the Arena District. But soon, the silence will be broken by high-performance cars rumbling and screeching around a half-mile racetrack with room for more than 8,500 onlookers to cheer for the notoriously loud sport. The planned Sports Pavilion and Automotive Research Complex (SPARC), due to open in 2014, will also feature an 8.5-acre paved infield and karting courses elsewhere on the 47-acre site.

Already one of the nation’s largest brain and spine centers, OhioHealth’s Riverside Methodist Hospital today announced plans for a $321 million tower that will bring all these services together under one roof.

The 10-story building is expected to improve efficiency and patient care, add hundreds of jobs and boost the area’s economy by $30 million annually within five years, according to hospital officials.

“This is a once-in-a-career opportunity to make an impact for our patients and the community,” said Dr. Stephen Markovich, president of Riverside.

Preliminary site work has begun and the official groundbreaking will be in early May for the Neuroscience Institute, which will add 224 patient rooms and increase the size of the Northwest Side hospital by 30 percent.

About 900 construction workers will build the tower, and Riverside will eventually add 330 full-time employees when it is completed in the summer of 2015, Markovich said.

The project is another in a string of recent hospital expansions that have helped keep local construction companies busy and will eventually add about 9,000 full-time hospital jobs.

The Casto real estate company plans to sail down the Scioto River to a new home this fall. Casto will swap its offices at 274 Marconi Blvd. and 191 W. Nationwide Blvd. for about 38,000 square feet in the Bicentennial Plaza building at 250 Civic Center Drive in Columbus. The relocation is expected in October. Casto and Bexley real estate investor Bob Meyers of Lawyers Development Corp. in December purchased the 113,309-square-foot office building for $6.1 million. Readers may recall Casto joined Lawyers Development in the purchase of the LeVeque Tower in 2011.

Casto has leased the Arena District offices – one is owned by Nationwide Realty Investors Ltd. and the Marconi building is the property of Arena One Inc. – for more than 10 years. It recently extended the leases totaling about 46,000 square feet through October as it weighed its office options. “Our goal was to A.) Have a downtown presence; and B.) Be all together (in one building) so we can operate more efficiently,” said Sarah Benson, Casto’s marketing director.

Casto will put its offices on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors at Bicentennial Plaza

Edwards Cos. has secured a second round of public financing for improvements around its Neighborhood Launch housing development in downtown Columbus. The Columbus-Franklin County Finance Authority has issued $2.1 million in revenue bonds to pay for public infrastructure for the second phase of Edwards’ condominium and apartment project between East Gay and East Long at North Fourth streets.

The public projects, including sidewalks and landscaping along the streets, will leverage Edwards’ $32 million in construction of 262 apartments with 170-slot parking garage and a 33-condo project. ... Development currently underway is expected to ready for residents by late 2014 as the project continues toward its goal of 450 housing units by late 2016.

Ohio State set to create east-side version of Campus Partners to boost hospital neighborhood

By Carrie Ghose, Staff reporter
Business First - Jan 30, 2013

Ohio State University trustees Friday will be asked to approve the creation of an affiliated nonprofit that would make good on the university’s 2010 promise to spend $10 million on neighborhood improvements in Columbus' near east side region surrounding University Hospital East.

The entity, to be called PACT for Partners Achieving Community Transformation, would be similar to Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment, the university’s affiliate that developed and manages the South Campus Gateway and is spurring housing revitalization in the Weinland Park neighborhood near the main campus. The city and the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority are partners in PACT and provide money toward the administrative budget.